🛟 The Rescue Update: Open Beta Begins!

Ahoy, Seafarers!

We’re back with our second major Early Access Update – and you can jump in right now to test it!

The Rescue Update introduces search and rescue gameplay, two dedicated rescue vessels, and a range of new missions, events, and improvements. From pulling castaways out of the water to customizing your vessel’s appearance, this update expands life at sea in meaningful new ways.

The update is now available for testing on the public_beta branch. If everything goes smoothly, the full release on the default branch is planned for February 19.

Before we dive into the details, enjoy our small announcement teaser:

🛟 The Rescue Update

This update expands the Tide Guard, the coastguard faction of Seafarer, with two new vessels and search and rescue gameplay. Whether it’s a distress call nearby or a shipwrecked survivor spotted on the horizon, it’s your job to respond and bring everyone home safely.

⛑️ Meet Salvation

Salvation is a dedicated rescue vessel designed for deployment during emergencies at sea. As one of the largest and most modern coast guard ships in the world of Seafarer, she serves as the primary vessel for search and rescue missions. Recover survivors from the water, provide initial care on board, and transport them safely to the nearest port.

🚤 Meet Grace

Grace is Salvation’s daughter boat and is designed for speed and precision. Smaller and more maneuverable, she excels at close-range rescue operations, allowing you to approach people in the water where larger ships cannot safely operate.

Together, Salvation and Grace form the backbone of Seafarer’s new rescue gameplay, giving you the tools to respond effectively when distress calls come in.

🆘 Introducing Rescue Gameplay

Search and rescue missions are an essential part of coastguard duties. These missions task you with responding quickly to emergencies at sea: head to the scene of the accident, locate and rescue people from the water, provide emergency rations and warm blankets, and safely transport everyone to the nearest port.

And finally, there’s a use for all those lifebuoys on board. 🛟

⚓ New Missions & Events

The Rescue Update not only adds new mission types to the game, but also expands the range of random events you may encounter at sea. Occasionally, you’ll be asked to transport fragile or unusual cargo between ports. Rescue situations can now also appear as random events during your travels at sea. Every ship is equipped with lifebuoys, allowing you to assist shipwrecked people you encounter unexpectedly on your journeys.

🎨 Customize your Vessels

This update includes a first iteration of our vessel editor. Feel free to change your vessels’ names and add predefined logos to make your ships truly your own and give your fleet a unique identity on the water. Additionally, you can adjust the colors for most vessels!

⚙️ New Ship Features & Improvements

With one of our previous updates, we introduced windshield wipers for some vessels. These are now also available on Nordic Duchess, Big Trip, and Bulk Willy.

We’ve also heard your feedback regarding bow thrusters. With this update, thruster mechanics have been added to Lancer, Nordic Duchess, Big Trip and Willy, improving control during docking, harbor navigation, and other low-speed maneuvers.

🛠️ Fixes & Improvements

Alongside the new content, this update includes a wide range of bug fixes, tweaks, and quality-of-life improvements to ensure smoother sailing.

Learn more in the patch notes below!

🎮 Try the Update early

1. Open Steam and go to your Library 

2. Right-click on Seafarer: The Ship Sim

3. Click Properties 

4. Select the Betas tab 

5. Choose 'public_beta' from the dropdown list 

🧭 Changelog

Patch #2 – Version 0.2.0.1508 (Steam)

Rescue Gameplay

Vessel Editor

• Name

• Logo

• Color

Fleet Update

• Rescue ship Salvation

• Daughter boat Grace

New Missions

• Rescue

• Practice course: Rescue

• Undercover

• Pilot service

• Event mission: Rescue shipwrecked

• Event mission: Delivery

Thrusters

• For Lancer, Nordic Duchess, Big Trip and Willy

• Note: only functionality / visuals will be done at a later stage

Wipers

• for Nordic Duchess, Big Trip, and Bulk Willy

Fixes and improvements

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Fixed multiple crashes and softlocks, including issues in menus and interaction states

• Resolved cases where players could get stuck in UI screens

• Fixed problems with input handling and key bindings being incorrectly marked as invalid

• Corrected several character and object interaction issues

• Addressed various spawn, loading, and state transition bugs

Gameplay & Systems

• Improvements to crew assignment and behavior

• Adjustments and fixes to ship and vehicle systems

• Resolved issues with key mapping

• Fixed problems with water, terrain, and environmental visuals

• More stable system behavior during interactions and menu changes in the fleet menu

• Improved various sound effects accross the game

Visual improvements

• Improved menu navigation and responsiveness

• Fixed display issues in multiple in-game menus

• More consistent behavior for hotkeys and shortcuts

• Various localization fixes in across all given languages

• Reworked Salavation and Grace appearance

Technical Improvements

• The game now looks significantly better when using Medium graphics settings. We’ve improved visual quality while maintaining performance balance.

• Internal system clean-ups to help prevent future issues

Performance Optimization

• Memory & VRAM Optimization

  • Significantly reduced VRAM usage
    This results in noticeably lower memory pressure and improved frame rates.

  • Reduced texture sizes where possible

  • General texture and material optimizations (including landscape materials – ongoing improvements)
    → Lower overall RAM and VRAM requirements
    → Improved performance on GPUs with 8 GB VRAM or less
    → Better scalability on mid-range hardware

  • New single-sample anti-tiling for ship surfaces
    → Improved visual quality
    → Minimal performance cost compared to traditional anti-tiling methods

• Rendering & GPU Performance

  • Optimized shadow updates
    Sun and moon movement is now quantized, reducing unnecessary shadow recalculations.
    → More stable GPU performance and reduced shadow rebuild cost.

  • Crane render targets now created only when needed
    → Lower VRAM spikes
    → Reduced rendering overhead

  • Optimized wind physics in particle effects
    → Lower CPU/GPU cost in VFX-heavy scenes

  • Smarter splash effect activation
    Based on camera angle, distance and movement
    → Reduced unnecessary particle simulation

  • Chimney smoke optimization
    Multiple smoke emitters now reuse simulation data where possible
    → Significantly lower simulation and rendering cost

  • Removed unnecessary splash occluder meshes
    → Lower Custom Depth cost
    → Improved highlight/outline stability
    → Slight performance gain

• Animation & NPC Improvements

  • General NPC animation performance improvements
    → Lower CPU animation cost and more stable performance

  • Rescue NPC mesh optimization (Master Pose setup)
    Attached meshes now inherit animation from a single rig
    → Reduced animation overhead

• Platform-Specific Improvements

  • Fixed AMD-related issues during firefighting and thunderstorm scenarios
    → Improved stability and performance on AMD hardware

• Asset & Scene Optimization

  • Optimized Chemical Plant areas

  • Reduced polycount of Herbert

  • Ongoing optimization of NPVs

  • Major foliage optimization:

    • Reduced polygon counts

    • Reduced material complexity

    • Disabled shadows for small foliage

Known Issues

• If a castaway is drowning the mission does not fail, but can't get completed and needs to get restarted.

• The second part of the delivery event mission is not displayed correctly for the players

• It is currently not possible to complete the event mission "Rescue shipwrecked" due to some logic errors

• Some NPVs generate splashing waves at random intervals

• Sometimes in the mission "Free Tugs" the NPV does not snap into position

• Occasionally the HUD displays are not updating correctly (rudder/throttle) - only visually

• During Rescue gameplay the game crashes if the player does not manage to rescue all people in time

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We’re excited to see how you handle rescue operations and hear your feedback as we continue shaping Seafarer together.

Thank you once again for being part of our voyage.

See you on the horizon,

Your Seafarer Team 🚣